Dr. Neshchapov came over from the iron works. He was a physician, but three years previously he had bought a share in the enterprise and had become one of the partners; and now he no longer looked upon medicine as his chief occupation, though he still prac- ticed. Looking at him, one saw a pale, dark-haired man in a white waistcoat, with a good figure; but to guess what there was in his heart and in his mind was diffi- cult. He kissed Aunt Dasha's hand on greeting her and was continually jumping up to move a chair or give his seat to someone; he was very grave and silent all the while and when he started speaking, it was for some reason impossible to hear and understand his first sen- tence, although he spoke clearly and not too low.
"You play the piano?" he asked Vera, and suddenly jumped up, as she had dropped her handkerchief.
He stayed from midday to midnight without saying anything, and Vera found him very unattractive. It seemed to her that a white waistcoat in the country was in bad taste, and his excessive politeness, his refined manners, and his pale, serious face with dark eyebrows struck her as mawkish; she fancied that he never opened his mouth probably because he was stupid. When he had gone, her aunt said enthusiastically, "Well? Isn't he charming?"
Aunt Dasha managed the property. Tightly laced, jingling bracelets on her wrist, she would walk mincingly into the kitchen, the barn, the cattle yard, her back twitching, and whenever she talked to the steward or to the peasants, for some reason, she would put on her pince-nez. Grandfather always sat in the same place, playing patience or dozing. He ate a very great deal at dinner and supper; he was served a freshly cooked din- ner, as well as leftovers and the cold remnants of Sun- day's pie and salt meat from the servants' dinner, and he ate it all greedily. The impression every dinner made on Vera was such that afterwards when she saw a flock of sheep driven by or flour being brought from the miU, she thought: "Grandfather will eat that." Most of the time he was alent, absorbed in eating or in patience; but it sometimes happened at dinner that, at the sight of Vera, he would get emotional and say tenderly, "My only grandchild! Verochka!"
And tears would glisten in his eyes. Or his face would turn suddenly crimson, his neck would swell, he would look with fury at the servants and, banging his stick, demand, "Why hasn't the horseradish been served?"
In winter he led a completely sedentary existence; in summer he sometimes drove out into the fields to have a look at the oats and the hay; and when he came back he would declare that everything was neglected now with ^rn away, and he rapped his stick.
"Your grandfather is out of humor," Aunt Dasha would whisper. "StiU, it is nothing now. But formerly it was terrible: Twenty-five strokes!' he would shout. 'Flog him! Hard!' "
Aunt Dasha complained that everyone had grown lazy, that no one did anything, and that the estate yielded no income. Indeed, there was no regular farm- ing on the place; they plowed and sowed a little simply from habit and in reality did nothing and lived in idle- ness. And yet all day long there was running to and fro, figuring and worrying. The bustle in the house began at five o'clock in the morning; one heard continually: "Bring it," "Fetch it," "Run an errand," and as a rule by evening the servants were utterly exhausted. Aunt Dasha's cooks and housemaids changed every week; sometimes she discharged them for immorality; some- times they left of their own accord, saying that they were worn out. None of the villagers would come to the house as a servant; it was necessary to hire people from a distance. There was only one girl from the village living in the house, Alyona, and she stayed because her whole family—old women and children—were living on her wages. This Alyona, a pale, rather stupid little thing, spent the whole day doing the rooms, waiting at tables, lighting the stove, sewing, washing; it always seemed as though she were only puttering about, mak- ing a noise with her boots and were nothing but a nuisance in the house. Dreading that she might be dis- missed and sent home, she often dropped and broke the crockery, and they deducted the value of it from her wages, and then her mother and grandmother would come and fall down at Aunt Dasha's feet.
Once a week and sometimes oftener, guests would arrive. Aunt Dasha would come to Vera and say, "You should show yourself to the guests, or they'll think that you are stuck-up."
Vera would go in to the guests and play vint with them for hours together or play the piano while the guests danced. Her aunt, in high spirits and breathless from dancing, would come up and whisper to her, "Be nice to Marya Nikiforovna."
On the 6th of December, St. Nicholas' Day, a lot of guests, about thirty of them, arrived all at once; they played vint until late and many of them stayed the night. In the morning they sat do^ to cards again, then had dinner, and when Vera went to her room after dinner to rest from conversation and tobacco smoke, she found guests there, too, and she almost wept with despair. And when they began to get ready to leave in the evening, so great was her relief to see them go at last that she said, "Do stay a little longer!"
Company wearied and constrained her, yet nearly every day as soon as it began to grow dark something pulled her out of the house and she drove off to visit either the iron works or some landowner in the neigh- borhood, and then there were cards, dancing, forfeits, supper . . . The young people employed in the plants or the mines sometimes sang Little Russian songs and sang them rather well. It made one sad to hear them. Or they all gathered together in one room and talked in the dusk about the mines, the treasure troves, famous grave-mounds. Sometimes it happened that as they were talking in the late hours, a shout of "Help!" was heard. It was a drunken man going home or someone who was being robbed near the pits in the neighborhood. Or else the wind howled in the chimneys, shutters banged, then they would hear the uneasy peals of church bells an- nouncing the beginning of a snowstorm.
At all the evening parties, picnics and dinners, Aunt Dasha was invariably the most interesting woman and Dr. Neshchapov the most interesting man. People living near the iron works or in the country houses did little reading; they played only marches and polkas, and the young people always argued hotly about things they did not understand, and the effect was crude. The argu- ments were loud and heated, but, strange to say, no- where had Vera met people who were as unconcerned and lackadaisical as these. They seemed to have no fatherland, no religion, no public interests. When they talked of literature or discussed some abstract problem, it was obvious from Dr. Neshchapov's face that the matter was of no interest to him whatever, and that for a long, long time he had read nothing and cared to read nothing. Giave and expressionless like a badly painted portrait, forever in his white waistcoat, he was uncommunicative and incomprehensible as before; but the ladies, young and old, thought him interesting, were enthusiastic over his manners and envied Vera whom he apparently found very attractive. And Vera always came away from the visit with a feeling of vexation, vowing inwardly to stay home; but the day passed, eve- ning came and again she hurried off to the iron works. And so it went on almost all winter.